


Five People Who Walked in on Jack and Ianto (and One Who Didn't)

by nanda (nandamai)



Category: Torchwood
Genre: 5 Things, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-12
Updated: 2012-03-12
Packaged: 2017-11-01 20:36:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nandamai/pseuds/nanda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just what it says on the tin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five People Who Walked in on Jack and Ianto (and One Who Didn't)

**One**

John -- he'd come to like the alias, and had been using it almost exclusively between his two visits to the twenty-first century -- stood before the cog wheel door in the Torchwood Hub. Such pitiful security, if he'd still had a wristband he could -- but he didn't, and nothing happened. He tried to force the wheel. He looked for a switch around the edges. He said, "Well, open, then!" He kicked the door and shouted, "Open!"

Still nothing happened.

Fucking miserable century. Their primordial tech _didn't even work_. What was left of Jack's team had made him scrub out the Japanese girl's blood, forcing him to his knees with an ancient weapon to his head, and now that he was done, their tech had failed and he couldn't even leave! He felt like Gray was still watching him; he wanted out.

None of them were in sight. Jack and his pretty boy had disappeared after cleaning and storing the body, and Gwen had merely nodded at John when he'd finished the floor, before hiding away somewhere, herself. He thought he'd heard her voice from below, possibly on the phone. 

John swaggered up the stairs, and he knew it would have been convincing, had anyone been there to see it. Pushing open the door to Jack's office, he started, "So you want me to stick around after all," but stood and stared when he saw all the naked skin. He tried, "If you'd like a third," instead.

"Get out," Ianto said. He didn't even look up. He was sitting on the floor with Jack astride his lap and Jack's arms and legs wrapped around him like a creeper. They rocked together, their faces tucked into each other's necks, whilst Jack's shoulders shook. Jack didn't make a sound. The room smelled like dirt and sweat.

John swallowed and said, "That's just it. Your sodding door's broken."

He saw one of Ianto's hands curl into a fist behind Jack's back; the other cradled Jack's head impossibly closer. "No, it's locked. You're lucky you're not in a cell. _Get out._ "

It was a damn shame, John thought. Jack was as gorgeous as he remembered, Ianto as gorgeous as he'd hoped, and he couldn't even blame them for wanting nothing to do with him. What an idiot he'd been. He decided bravado would be best. "But really, if you want --"

Ianto raised his head, blue eyes steely in a way John had never imagined they could be, and John backed out, shutting the door. He sprawled on the tattered sofa, where he heard Jack say a few words he couldn't make out. Then the Hub was silent. 

***

 **Two**  

Andy's crap night was made even crappier by a call that came in just before dawn, of a disturbance on the roof of a tower of luxury flats. He always seemed to get the roof calls lately. Someone, somewhere, was having a laugh.

Thinking of a hot coffee and a warm bed, he trudged up the last flight of stairs. There was a shadow against the orange on the eastern edge of the roof. He heard a Welsh voice he recognized saying, "Come for me, baby," which was so much more than he ever wanted to know, and oh, god, he knew that coat. That stupid, garish coat, but today it was a blessing, because it shielded them completely from Andy's eyes. 

They were mad, these two. Gwen's friend Ianto had seemed so sensible when Andy had first met him.

"Oi, Torchwood!" he called, not taking a single step nearer. "Grow up and go home!"

A hand waved at him over the coat. Andy decided he needed to get off the beat as soon as possible. He was due a promotion soon, surely? 

He could write them up, but nothing would come of it. Maybe if he locked them on the roof they'd stay out of trouble for a while? No, probably not. Ah, well, they'd be done when they were done, and it sounded like that would be soon. In fact, the sooner Andy left, the sooner they'd go away. He left them to it, but he did find locking the door strangely satisfying.

***

**Three**

She was nearing home with her hard-won meal when she heard a call of distress from one of her clan. Dropping the food, she loped back towards the park. She followed his scent to a familiar, dark machine, the kind these creatures used instead of their feet. Her clan-mate was inside and had gone quiet. He was probably asleep. The humans used something sharp to make her kind sleep whenever they wished. She rounded the machine silently and hid behind a pair of trees.

On this side of the machine were two humans she recognized. They often mated after they captured her kind, and they were doing so now. She understood the mating: her kind also believed they were more fertile after the hunt. But the hunt, she did not understand. They usually released those they took the dark after capturing them, but why hunt only to release your prey? Did they not need to eat?

So her clan-mate would probably be safe, but she had no choice. She growled and charged. The humans jumped apart and called out to each other, their delicate skin showing in places they usually kept covered. She went for the one who wore the fur of an animal her kind liked to eat, when they could find them. After slashing her claws where she knew he was weakest, she tried to bite his neck. He yowled in pain but his mate was too quick with the sharp, and she soon found herself beside her clan-mate, tied within the machine and near sleep.

She heard the fur-clad human laugh before he shut her inside. It was strange: she was certain she'd killed him before.

***

**Four**

Sandy giggled her way back to the loo with Olwen. The night had been rubbish so far, the only decent scenery not interested in anyone outside their own group, and Karen had said she knew a better pub two streets over. Sandy needed a loo break before leaving. She was distracted, talking to Olwen, when she pushed open the door. Then she stopped dead, Olwen plowing into her from behind. 

"Sandy, what are you -- oh, my god!"

It was two of the men she'd noticed at that back table, and they were full-on snogging, lips locked, hands roving, breathing hard enough to hear. They pulled apart slightly and the younger one, the one in the posh suit, looked right at her and said calmly, "I believe you'll find this is the gents'."

Olwen pushed the door open farther and stood there gaping.

Sandy leaned back into the corridor and called, "Girls! You have got to see this!"

The younger man groaned and the older man laughed. They bent their foreheads together, but that, disappointingly, was that.

"Well, go on, then," Sandy said as her friends crowded in.

"Oh, what the hell," the older man said. He grabbed the back of his protesting boyfriend's head and crushed their mouths together.

The women cheered.

***

**Five**

This place reminded John of a bomb shelter during the Blitz, with the half-light and the damp. He'd met his wife in a bomb shelter. Her father had owned the butcher's opposite and she'd helped out in the shop sometimes. She and John had sat close together, talking, throughout one long night in May of 1943, and he'd proposed six weeks later.

John tried to shake off the thought. It would do him no good. _Tea,_ he thought. Tea would help, or at least it would be familiar. He climbed the stairs, looking for the kitchen, and thought he heard Harkness' voice. That made John feel a little better. Of all of them, Harkness seemed the closest to normal.

John stopped up short when he spotted them: Harkness, close up behind the younger man -- Jones? -- who was washing teacups. Harkness' hands were on the edge of the sink either side of Jones' body, his chest pressed into Jones' back, his mouth close to Jones' ear. John recognized the pose; he'd held his wife like that often enough whilst she did the washing up. 

But this! John felt ill. He'd never seen such a thing, never. As he watched, Jones turned slightly and kissed Harkness on the mouth.

"You --" John started to say. "You're --" He knew the word, but he couldn't bring himself to say it. 

They didn't even have the decency to jump apart. Harkness merely looked confused as he stepped back and slung his hands in his trouser pockets. "John? Are you all right? Can we get you something?"

Jones at least knew to blush. He said, "I'll just put the tea on, shall I?"

"John?" Harkness asked again.

 _New century, indeed_ , John thought. He needed to leave, right now. As he turned away to find the loo he heard Jones say, "He'll never have seen two men together, Jack."

John prayed the Oriental girl would find his son soon. _You just need them to find Alan,_ he told himself. _As soon as they find Alan, you can leave this nightmare behind._

***

**Six**

Gwen hurried down the stairs to the archives, where she'd been spending more time now that there were just the three of them and far too much work for Ianto to do on his own. She turned a corner, took two steps, and froze. 

The door to room 39 was ajar, not enough to see inside, but enough to hear the squelch and slap that told her exactly what Ianto and Jack were doing, and the clang of metal drawers that told her where.

She looked at the files in her hands, asking herself if they could wait. No, she decided. The sooner they finished with this case, the sooner they could get to the next five which were just as pressing. She tiptoed past the door, shutting her ears as well as she could, and quickly found what she needed in room 44. Arms full again, she headed back to the stairs. 

The noise had slowed, and on top of it she heard low voices she didn't want to make out, then laughter. It had been ages since she'd heard either of them laugh, and it was especially welcome so soon after the Earth had moved and she and Ianto had fought off a Dalek in the Hub. She'd worried that Jack's latest trip with the Doctor would cause tension between her friends. 

Smiling, she left the archives, and left the Hub. They deserved as much time alone as they could get; the case would just have to wait until tomorrow.

_fin._


End file.
